In May, we explored how leadership must evolve in Gen AI. This month, I want to shift our focus to something equally fundamental but often ignored in transformation conversations: process.
It's not technology, platforms, or automation. It's just a simple, clear human process, the way work actually happens, from the ground up.
I recently met with the CFO of a fast-growing regional manufacturer to discuss a possible restructuring of her organisation. The conversation then led to the way of working, where her frustration became quite visible. Despite investing millions in a state-of-the-art ERP system, her teams were struggling. Reporting was delayed, user adoption was weak, and department tension was rising. 'We were promised efficiency,' she said, 'but it feels like we've only made things harder.'
It wasn't the technology's fault. The mistake was far more common: they had digitised a broken process. They had taken old bottlenecks and inefficiencies and moved them into a new system. And now, those inefficiencies were running at scale, harder to fix and more expensive to reverse.
Technology Should Not Be Your Starting Point
Technology is an enabler, but it cannot think for you, clarify accountability, streamline handovers, or resolve confusion. It will do whatever you tell it to do, flawed process and all, which is why so many digital projects fail to deliver the promised return. They're built on the wrong foundation.
Andrew McBean, our Partner leading Technology and Digital Services at Grant Thornton, Thailand, often reminds clients that true innovation begins not with scales, but with precision:
"We must continually infuse digital into our business processes. Constant, rapid, iterative and generally small improvements help make innovation more manageable and effective."
His point is simple: clean processes unlock smart technology. Small, continuous adjustments are far more powerful than grand, one-time overhauls. It's not about launching platforms; it's about preparing the organisation to use them well.
What Happens When You Don't Prepare
When processes are neglected, people become the patch. They create workarounds, repeat steps, guess what's expected, or simply delay. Morale drops. Trust in the system erodes. And leadership loses visibility into what's really happening. You don't just risk inefficiency; you risk culture, cohesion, and confidence in change.
The Way Forward
Every transformation should begin with a deep look at how work gets done; not how it should work or what the organisational chart says, but how people truly interact, hand over tasks, make decisions, and solve problems. That's where insight lives, and that's where value is unlocked.
From there, you redesign the process with clarity and logic. You engage the people doing the work, i.e., putting them through changes they will embrace. You strip out redundancy and make accountability visible. When the system flows, you only bring in technology to scale that clarity.
